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AP Photo/Harvey Georges New York Governor Hugh Carey, left, and New York City Mayor Abe Beame, right, meet with President Gerald Ford at the White House in Washington, May 13, 1975, in an appeal for $1.5 billion in emergency aid for New York City. Fear City: New York's Fiscal Crisis and the Rise of Austerity Politics By Kim Phillips-Fein Metropolitan Books This article appears in the Summer 2017 issue of The American Prospect magazine. Subscribe here . F ortunes made in finance, real estate, and media give New York City more billionaires than any other single locale worldwide. With nearly half its population either in poverty or near poverty, it is not surprising that New York has the greatest income inequality among the 25 largest U.S. cities. Generally, inequality goes hand in hand with low mobility, but paradoxically, New York is the exception. Certain of the city’s public institutions and its tax policies provide opportunities for those starting in the lower income range. New York...

Mike Groll/AP Images Bill de Blasio visits Governor Andrew Cuomo, who has alternated between thwarting de Blasio's proposals and seeking to outdo them. This article appears in the Fall 2016 issue of The American Prospect magazine. Subscribe here . I t has been five years since the Occupy movement focused attention on the gap in income between the top 1 percent and other Americans. During Barack Obama’s first term, Democrats made federal taxes more progressive and expanded health insurance for low- and middle-income people. But since those changes were adopted, conservative forces in Washington have stifled further progress toward greater income equality. Many liberals have therefore focused on local measures, despite some clear limitations to going local. Legally, cities and counties are creatures of their respective states and often face strict statutory limits on what they can do, including laws preempting local initiatives (see Abby Rapoport, “ Blue Cities, Red States ,” The...

AP Photo/Seth Wenig Fortune Magazine calls it "the house that inequality built": 432 Park Avenue is the tallest residential building in the Western Hemisphere. Although it has more than 400,000 square feet of interior space, it has only 104 living units, and if patterns in the area are an indication, 60 percent of the units will be vacant 10 months or more a year. This article appears in the Spring 2016 issue of The American Prospect magazine . Subscribe here . I f you want to learn about the latest manifestations of inequality in urban America, read the real-estate sections of newspapers and magazines and check out the photo spreads on luxury condos in new residential skyscrapers. The palatial size, lavish finishes, and breathtaking price tags of these properties are advertisements of our new Gilded Age. In the area immediately south of Central Park in Manhattan now known as Billionaire’s Row, condos at a half-dozen towers for the super-rich list for an average of $14.5 million...